Blizzard. Titan. What genre is the New Blizzard MMO?

There’s a lot we can extrapolate from what’s already been announced regarding Blizzard’s next MMO. For those of you who don’t know, “Titan” is the official Blizzard code name for the new MMO they’ve been working on for the past several years. If you think back to the early days of WoW, certain names pop up that haven’t heard in awhile… names like Rob Pardo and Jeffrey Kaplan. Where did they go? They’re working on Titan. As for the game itself, two things can easily be surmised. The genre… and the release date. I’ll tell you both. First, let’s talk about genre.

For the genre, we need to focus on one specific fact from Blizzard: Titan will be an entirely new franchise. That tells us a lot. In fact, it pretty much tells us the genre.

First off, let’s face it– We alraedy know it’s either going to be science fiction or fantasy. It’s not as if Blizzard is going to release a Wild West MMO. Science fiction and fantasy are what they do and they’re sticking with it.

Fantasy is a genre you can divide in to two halves: high fantasy, and low fantasy. For high fantasy, think of Tolkien… or even more so, think of WoW. High fantasy is all about the fantastic. Prevalent magic, over stylized-armor, and countless humanoid races. Low fantasy is much more down to Earth. Think Conan the Barbarian, or Greek Mythology. Magic and monsters exist, but they’re rare. Human’s are effectively the only humanoid race.

Now… I’m going to make an educated guess here, and I’m going to stand by it. I don’t think Blizzard is going to have two franchises that use the same genre. There’s too much cross-over. It’d damage both games’ originality. You’d have two teams of artists creating virtually the same art every week. It just doesn’t work.

WoW is high fantasy…. *very* high fantasy.

Diablo is low fantasy. Granted it’s pretty high on the scale, but for Blizzard, a team that loves to lean towards “high”, yeah. Diablo is Blizzard’s version of a low fantasy.

And so we turn our attention to Science Fiction. Now– is there such a thing as high science fiction and low science fiction? Sure. It may not be as popular a divide as it is in fantasy, but it’s certainly there. So, what is high science fiction? It’s a space opera, like Battlestar Galactica or Star Wars. The fictional science is fantastic, yet so commonplace it isn’t even revered. Space ships look used and beat up. Confederations are made up of planets instead of countries. Spaceships are as accessible as airplanes. Does Blizzard already have a game like this? You bet they do… StarCraft.

So… that leaves us with only one choice… and there’s your answer. Low science fiction. What is low science fiction? Think “Blade Runner”, “Snow Crash”, Cyberpunk, or heck even Steampunk. It’s the future, everything is much more advanced, but man is still very much planet bound. And that is what Titan will be. Low science fiction

As for the release date? I’ve made this guess before, but I’ll make it again. 2015. Yep, four years. And yes, I’m aware that a recent leaked document from Blizzard pegged the release for sometime in late 2013. So what? Blizzard never meets their deadlines. Instead, they release each of their products “when they’re ready”. Sure, they’ve also officially stated that WoW will still be going on when Titan is released. But that really doesn’t mean anything. Heck, “Dark Age of Camelot” is still going on. This might sound cynical, but I think it’s true… When we ask, “When will Titan be out?” what we’re really asking is, “How far will Blizzard go over their internal deadline.” My guess is 18 months. 2015.

So there you have it. Four years from now, in 2015, Blizzard will be releasing their low science fiction MMO.

I’m still leaning towards Titan being either a grounded steam-punk genre, or a ‘space’ steam-punk (think Titan A.E.) I believe there was talk of it on this blog at one point too.

There’s no reason that they couldn’t go for a science encrusted wild west MMO, because realistically, Blizzard has only tried two genres of setting, and did well in both. They have the writers and the cash to spend the time to do a new genre right.

Along the same lines as not making two high-fantasy MMO’s, I don’t think they’d want to tread even close to the fantasy genre or the space battle genre, for fear of diluting the player base there. A steam-punk setting gives that sci-fi feel without being noticeably similar to the Starcraft setting, and gives the same range of options for character archetypes that a fantasy setting can.

It obviously won’t be fantasy because they don’t want to compete direclty with WOW. Personally I think a historical setting would work well and could potentially attrack a much larger range of players but I’m not sure if any historical MMOs have really been successful in the past.

I’ve read it will be a post-apocalyptic FPS but I think everyone is just speculating at this point.

There’s a great collection of information about Titan over at http://www.titanproject.net with links to a lot of the Blizzard comments ont he subject.

Not to make them plagiarize, but I think it’d be great if they went more in the direction of kind of like EVE and Mass Effect combined, with ship to ship combat, and ground combat, but i could be wishing too much.

I’ve heard rumblings that they’re working on another secret project besides Titan, but I haven’t heard anything about it being yet another MMO. Logistically speaking, I doubt it’d be an MMO, since you’d end up with Titan and the other project cannibalizing each other.

i agree with the genre analysis however i don’t think it would be in 2015, they need to release it relatively soon as the WoW market is over-saturated and they are losing ground to other pc games like league of legends and dota 2

It won’t just be a low-science genre MMO.
Blizzard’s new MMO will be genius. It will be the first true next-gen MMO.. meaning it will have a whole new system and model. Instead of being pegged as 1 “type” of game, Titan will most likely give players the opportunity to play in all kinds of different environments and atmospheres. I expect there to be some form of character or avatar that represents you, and you and your friends are able to travel to many different worlds, play through many different storylines, and different types of gameplay. This eclectic model fits perfect with Blizzard’s proven marketing approach: franchise, and expand. A game with no boundaries is limitless for expansion. World of Warcraft had a rigid history and storyline, which made it difficult to release meaningful expansions, but even so.. they’ll release at least 4. Imagine how many different expansions you could make in a game that had no overlying storyline or setting that you had to work within?

Think of a game like the old role-playing game, Rift, where players could travel to many different worlds and have different adventures each time they play. The feeling of a repetitive end-game would not be as strong in a game like Titan because players had complete control of what they did for the “end-game experience.” Maybe you like to explore? Maybe you like to fight? Maybe you like to collect or create things? A game with many different options like that attracts a much wider audience, since it appeals to many different types of people.

Titan will be the ultimate gaming feat. It will set the bar high for all games which boast about being “next-gen”, since Titan will be the first one to truly hit the mark. I even foresee Blizzard incorporating social media networks into the game, for added experiences and popularity growth.

I think you guys are setting the bar of expectations kind of low, if all you think Titan is going to be is a low-sci-fi MMO similar in structure to WoW, only with a better game engine. This is Blizzard we’re talking about. They have more resources than any other game studio on the planet.

I think a high Sci-Fi Starcraft mmo would blow peoples’ minds.. for instance: if that were the case, i would still play SC2, but would probably stop playing SWTOR to play SCO (starcraft online?). Some people just are not interested in fantasy MMOs as much as SCI-fi mmos..

Whatever the genre of the new MMO, it better be rated MA!!!! i want blood in my mmo damnit! exploding bodies. severed limbs! why do all the MMOs have to be for children? Throw some nudity and sex in there!!! Let the kids play WOW, and let the adults have their game too!

I am watching and searching for any information about Titan I can find. I am a Eve player I love the game but the developer is crap at engineering well thought out mechanics. I am also a firm believer in player derived content > scripted theme park content. I am hoping nay praying Titan will be a Single Shard or at least mega shard sandbox style MMO. Hopefully with enough scripted content aka dungeons raidesque type stuff to make the typical gamer feel a bit more comfortable in dipping there toes into a sandbox. Trust me I am a high-end gamer in Eve , and players can deliver more , better & sustainable content then a expansion every other quarter or 3 with some new raids and shiny items can.

In Eve all items from the core materials to end products can be gathered created and traded by players. The game Eve has a fully independent and vibrant economy that the players themselves fuel and use in cyclical fashion. I think Blizzard could create a amazing sandbox game that will dwarf any other product ever on the market its what im hoping for. If Blizzard does nothing else well its delivering carefully calculated and flawlessly engineered products.

I think the days of the Theme Park MMO’s are coming to a end. It’s a played out genre I mean to say as a veteran MMO player going back to launch of Everquest that scripted content no matter how shiny and new gets old after a certain period of time. A new dungeon can only have so many new tricks and gimmicks before you have seen them all. Sandbox style MMO’s are where its at because you give the players tools and widgets and gadgets and you send them forth. Everynow and then you tweak those tools widgets and gadgets and add new ones and eliminate others. Sandbox’s are a far superior model imo however the pitfall has always been the learning curve of sandbox style mmo’s. The safeguards and softening the learning curve is harder I think this is where Blizzard will shine as they are the undisputed king of engineering well thought out mechanics that are seamless in integration of the overall game.

Maybe im crazy but this is my dream. I really feel like this is the “Next Level” in gaming and if anyone is able to deliver it Blizzard is who I would place my bet on. I think they are the only ones that can bridge the limitless boundaries of the sandbox and soften the barrier of entry for the less ” Hardcore ” gamer.

I’m all for it being MA, and I personally prefer one faction pvp (a’la Age of Conan). As for it being a massive sandbox instead of a theme-park. That could very well be. Blizz seems to be changing their strat with WoW milking as many expansions out of it as they humanly can… but we’ll see. My point is, if Titan is a sandbox then that’ll create far less overlap with WoW, which mean Blizzard can then sell them side by side more easily. And we all know Activision-Blizzard would like that!

It’s fiction characterized by heavy reliance on scientific accuracy, etc. Star Wars is not Hard SciFi; Star Wars is actually Science Fantasy due to the mystical magical-like Force that Jedi “wizards” manipulate. EVE Online, with its reliance on accuracy — even if it’s using submarine physics instead of astrophysics — is much more likely to be considered as Hard SciFi. Star Trek is Science Fiction, though it is not Hard SF.

@Moo Yes, I’m aware of the Hard/Soft scale of Sci-Fi, and thank you for posting a link. I intentionally used the high/low scale more commonly used with Fantasy as I get the sense that this is more of how Blizzard views the Sci-Fi genre. Star Wars on one end, Snow Crash on the other.

On the more traditional Hard/Soft scale for Sci-Fi, yes I think Titan will lean more towards the hard side. At least I hope it does, since Star Craft leans a bit soft.

I also agree with you about Star Wars and the Hard/Soft scale. Personally, I think Star Wars doesn’t even fit on it, although some would argue that. Star Wars is a fantasy story with a sci-fi veneer…I wouldn’t even necessarily give it its own genre (Science Fantasy), since structurally it’s exactly the same as fantasy.

I would bet one thing. It will NOT be based on the Starcraft universe. WoW spelt the end of RTS Warcraft and so would a Starcraft MMO, they’d never risk that with esports taking off in Western culture and the popularity of SC2 in Korea. Just my two bobs. Dystopian scifi and a move toward more adult/realistic aesthetics would be sweet. But then again what ever it does it has to make as much money as possible (blizz’s vision statement = monetize at all costs.) so it will most likely be kiddy looking cos adults seem to play it anyway. Look at SWTOR, what crap.

Given what they’ve said regarding the setting(s) I wouldn’t be surprised if the core *idea* was something along the lines of dimension jumping. The possibilities are endless for both ‘casual’ and ‘hardcore’ players. If not – great idea, someone run with it.

I think whatever Blizzard do it will be something we have not said cause we know how blizzard gives us release dates and Blizzard will say release 2013 release 2014 see blizzard will most likley set us up on a wild goose chase in one direction when what there doing will most likley be in the other direction i think that TITAN is to do with a remodeling of WoW a brand new engine and a reinvisioned world to play in because there are Titans in WoW and they strive for Order and prefection get the link there connected together if this happens i will be soo happy!

It’s actually been revealed that it’s going to be a time travel game. Someone asked, and I quote, “So is Blizzard’s new MMO going to be sci-fi, near-future, post-apocalyptic or historical?” and the answer was, “All of those combined!” The only way for it to be all those things is if time travel was a major part of the game. So most probably, we will start somewhere in the near-future when a time machine is invented, and we use said time machines to travel through time to make certain things happen in the future and the past.

ORRRRRR my dreams will come true and they will make and create an awesome naruto based rpg… not with naruto in it and everything but like being a ninja in the hidden villages.. think about it.. low fantasy??? not standing out armor or over the top magic and stuff.. but shuriken, kunai?? maybe it wont have anything to do with science fiction. imo a sci fi mmo rpg wont be very diverse, wont have much to work with. oh my lord i have soooo many ideas for this naruto-style rpg and i hopppppe blizard listen and make it.

Character Creation Setup
STEP 1: Customize your look: this needs to have a large variety of looks so every character someone makes is unique.
STEP 2: Choose your chakra nature type (wind, fire, water, lightning, earth): this becomes like the class you choose, choosing 1 nature means you can 0nly perform jutsu that exists within your chakra nature.
STEP 3: Choose the starting village of your desire.: (Mist, Leaf, Sand, Stone, Cloud): these will be like in WoW the major cities, and the city boss are the kage. in this naruto era all villages are at war with eachother.
Also you may choose to abandon your village after you become a jonin, you may not choose to become part of major villages but you can join subvillages like; Lightning village, Snow village, Rain village, Grass village, Sound village etc…
STEP 4: Enter the world and begin your journey.
there will be levels like 1-50. each level-up you make you get to put 1 point into either taijutsu/genjutsu/ninjutsu, each with their bonuses. then you put 5 stats into strength(power of your taijutsu and block/parry chance) /agility(speed, rate at with you can attack, dodge chance /intellect( the power of your jutsu)
Then you have talents that improve your abilities which are unlocked throughout leveling. these abilities are specific to your chakra nature and need a specific number of points in either nin/tai/gen jutsu.
Ranks: Every 10 levels you gain you are promoted to a rank. at level 10 you are promoted to genin, at level 20 to chunin at lvl 30 to jonin at level 40 to special jonin and at lvl 50 anbu.

Overall i wish someone would notice and take on the challenge of making a naruto-style rpg and i have more ideas about this that im willing to share with others

Uhm, We know the next game will be called “Titan”
How can you possible connect a name like that to sci-fi only?
My guess is more to a medieval style (thinking time of Romans)
ofc. I can be wrong, but the title would make sence then.
Combining this with sci-fi however would make one h.ll of a game.

Personally, I think that it will be a post-apocalyptic MMO with time-travel implemented into it to further change the game content. I am however certain that it will NOT be related to the Starcraft franchise, as this would have a very negative effect on Starcraft, a game that already does very well especially in Asian countries more so than Western countries. I think a good analogy would be to compare it similar to the Resident Evil series of games (FPS mixed with MMO) without the lore behind Resident Evil.

I liked the idea of an ancient past game. Kinda like how Lucas Arts milked the crap outa Starwars games, then went back to ancient past. Starwars Knights of the Old Republic (giving back stories, and being able to live out some known ones) Then “The Old Republic” proper came out. I always thought Titan was a reference to the super old guys in the Warcraft universe -> http://www.wowwiki.com/Titan

It would be neat to see them work the Titans into the back story from the Xel’Naga in the Starcraft Universe. Then and whatever existed way back then in the Diablo universe could come too (Watch for it in D3, I’m hoping something there comes out about ancient past.) I would love to hear a back story of how the Prime Evils came to be, kinda like Sauron and Melcore in the Tolkien Universe.

Play as the Xel’Naga VS the Titans. That would be the shit, Technology VS Magic!? A tale old as time itself.

its not going to be a starcraft mmo unfortunately. the simple fact is there is too much ranged combat in starcraft between terran and protoss and the idea to make a “new, ambitious” mmo would never ever include only the zerg.

honestly I think Brian worded it better than I ever could:

“It won’t just be a low-science genre MMO.
Blizzard’s new MMO will be genius. It will be the first true next-gen MMO.. meaning it will have a whole new system and model. Instead of being pegged as 1 “type” of game, Titan will most likely give players the opportunity to play in all kinds of different environments and atmospheres. I expect there to be some form of character or avatar that represents you, and you and your friends are able to travel to many different worlds, play through many different storylines, and different types of gameplay. This eclectic model fits perfect with Blizzard’s proven marketing approach: franchise, and expand. A game with no boundaries is limitless for expansion. World of Warcraft had a rigid history and storyline, which made it difficult to release meaningful expansions, but even so.. they’ll release at least 4. Imagine how many different expansions you could make in a game that had no overlying storyline or setting that you had to work within?

Think of a game like the old role-playing game, Rift, where players could travel to many different worlds and have different adventures each time they play. The feeling of a repetitive end-game would not be as strong in a game like Titan because players had complete control of what they did for the “end-game experience.” Maybe you like to explore? Maybe you like to fight? Maybe you like to collect or create things? A game with many different options like that attracts a much wider audience, since it appeals to many different types of people.

Titan will be the ultimate gaming feat. It will set the bar high for all games which boast about being “next-gen”, since Titan will be the first one to truly hit the mark. I even foresee Blizzard incorporating social media networks into the game, for added experiences and popularity growth.

I think you guys are setting the bar of expectations kind of low, if all you think Titan is going to be is a low-sci-fi MMO similar in structure to WoW, only with a better game engine. This is Blizzard we’re talking about. They have more resources than any other game studio on the planet.”

Titan doesn’t refer to a specific point in time like some of you argue, it refers simply to the project Blizzard is working on. This will be a completely new idea, it will tower over all others, it will be colossal.
boom. Titan.

@et tu brutus — I actually mentioned Rifts in one of the comments up above though. Keep in mind though that Rifts itself is closer Snow Crash than it is to Star Trek. When you look at something like The Coalition, they’ve got flying personal craft, etc… but Earth hasn’t developed something like warp technology. Those kinds of things are handled by magic. Despite that though, I think we’re on the same page in many regards.

On a related note, I wish there was an established term for what I’m trying to describe. I ended up basically having to create a high/low scale for sci-fi, similar to the fantasy scale. Looking back though, I think it might be too easily confused with the concept of hard/soft sci-fi. Suffice to say, we’re not going to see a space opera. It’ll be closer to cyberpunk, Blade Runner, Snow Crash, and if there’s any fantasy element, I’m betting it’ll be integrated in a way similar to Rifts.

(Happy fun note for the younger crowd… We’re talking about “Rifts” not “Rift”… two totally separate RPG’s that have nothing to do with each other.)

There are too many possibilities that it could be, Diablo, WoW, SC and WC are none of these genre’s:
*First Person Shooter(I’ll tag Third Person Shooters since they would be roughly similar)
* Survival Horror(Something like the Resident Evil or Dead Space series, seeing as Silent Hill wouldn’t really have any use for multiplayer. Maybe take the idea of Deadfrontier, add more outposts, some actual npc shops, make some “clear this building” quests that will have the evolving environment from WoW, and more the one city.)
*Post-Apocalyptic(I wouldn’t think it smart if they rip off Fallout to the teeth, maybe a mix between it, Borderlands, and Road Warrior? With customizable armor, weapons, and vehicles, and for the vehicle aspect of it when you’re driving around make roving groups of bandit that will randomly spawn in and attack.)
*Sci-Fi shooter/rpg(One can only hope for Mass Effect World, but seeing as they haven’t even let the Reaper’s ashes get cold, and the fact Activision-Blizzard is in no way involved, this is very, very unlikely. Or as I posted Previously have some form of space combat, while keeping ground combat in the game, whether it be just like WoW with lasers, or a mix between ground and assault vehicle combat.)

All of these seem to be the genre’s that would fit the bill for an MMO’s , but I hope it more of either a mix between survival horror and post-apocalyptic or sci-fi with both shooter elements, fps or third person, and rpg elements. But, I put my trust in Blizzard, and hope they don’t mess it up.

Think all of you are wrong. Well , most all of you.
Blizzard has stated numerous times that their new MMORPG will be targeted at a diverse player base. That it will be a game that anyone can enjoy. This automatically rules out any kind of Sci-Fi themed MMO. True, a sci-fi MMO would be awesome, however, a lot of players do not enjoy sci-fi games. In fact, a sci-fi theme MMO would automatically divide their fan base.
Without being at all bias and with only the facts that are known, we can gather the following elements about Titan.
1. Titan will not be World of Warcraft 2.
2. Titan will not be a high fantasy game in any shape or form.
3. Titan will most likely not be a Sci-fi game.
4. Titan will not be an FPSMMORPG (Too many gamers that are not into shooters.)
5. Titan will not be a Starcraft MMORPG.
6. Titan will be a Casual MMORPG. (Stated many times by Blizzard)
Blizzard has stated that they want their new MMO to target players of all areas of life. So when thinking about Titan, you really have to think outside the box. I think that it will truly be the first “Next-Gen” MMORPG. It will probably be a Sand-Box MMO with a great deal of emphasis on social interaction and development.

If it’s not Starcraft MMO or fantasy based then I am not that interested! lol
Casual MMO that focuses on social interaction and developement, Sounds freaking boring to me if people want that there is facebook, Or better yet real life. They will be dividing their user base if they DON’T offer something that we can all escape reality from,That is why I play games to have a break from social interactions I want to play a game and be able to do anything and pretend I have some godlike power that is the fun in it, Being able to group up with a few frineds in game is all I need, I don’t need a facebook game that relies heavily on everyone else on the planet!
But anyway we will just have to wait and see what it ends up being, As long as they update the graphics(WoW) is looking very old and make it so I am not forced to buy any item in game with real money then I will most likely at least give it a shot. I don’t mind grinding months just to get an item in game but don”t hand it out for free to next lot of noobs or for half the effort just because you release next seasons gear,Blizzard are you listening? Make people earn it still!

I don’t know what it will be, but I do know what I think it should be. SWTOR probably made the best inroads toward a viable “Sci-fi” MMO, but there were too many similarities to existing MMOs (read WOW) and not enough content to keep it interesting much past 50. (The space battle section was much neglected.) Just another grind, albeit a very well done grind.

I think the thing that worked for WOW, and one of the reasons I kept going back for 4 years, is just the scope and depth of the WOW universe as well as the play of the classes. Granted, Blizzard pretty much ruined the game after Burning Crusade with random dungeons, boring “token” grinds for gear, and killing 5-man dungeons by making them too easy and destroying player character balance. It’s really too bad because WOW was one of the best games ever made, at least to start. (Think artwork, scale of world, seemingly vast amounts of content and plenty of challenges).

This brings me to the point: It’s going to be difficult, if not impossible to beat WOW unless you make a game AS GOOD OR BETTER than (original) WOW. Moreover, the fantasy model is just beat to death. I spent about 10 minutes playing Aion before shelving it, and I got to level 10 in Rift before shelving it. The one contender was SWTOR, but by level 40 something, I could already see the basic retread of the WOW system, albeit in star wars gear. The classes and play were great, but they weren’t new enough to call them a really different system. In the end, it just became another grind.

So, there are 2 things I’dl like to see:

1) Science fiction. Be creative! There is SO much material available in the Sci-fi genre, you’d almost have to be stupid not to find excellent source material for game design.
2) Try something NEW. Yes, there should be the elements of work/reward and especially teamwork, but it doesn’t have to be a grind. I think Diablo III, at least while leveling abilties was an excellent possible model for the future of the MMO. While a couple of classes have healing abilities, it’s not about “being a healer”. Any character geared well enough can hold their own in combat, and yet each character is very unique in skills and abilities. However, when working together, the challenges are much harder and everyone needs to be on their “A” game to win. This sounds like an excellent platform to build a new style of MMO. Agreed?

Give me these two things, along with next gen (tired phrase) graphics and I think “Titan” will go a long way. Forget the basics though and it will fold like a house of Star Wars Collector’s cards.

Frankly mattm is the only sane one in this thread. Many of you are living squarely inside the box. Nothing about most of your ideas would be at all innovative. Steampunk would have a small, small playerbase, not going to happen.

Not even a remotely significant number of players who love FPS will be willing to pay a monthly sub for an MMOFPS, do you think Blizzard’s not going to tap that proven revenue source with their next game? Most the people I know who play WoW have no interest in playing an MMOFPS, so it’s very doubtful they’d invest a massive amount of time into a genre in which they have no proven track record nor a potential continuous revenue stream.

Taking that quote from the MTV interview to heart or to mean anything at all is asinine, he was just fucking with you. It means nothing and it’s just a redirection answer, and you all bit. As easily as it could mean Rifts, Time Travel, etc. it could mean sandbox. But to instantly extrapolate any of that, from that answer, is just a reflection of your personal desire and not grounded in any reality.

To make the leap that it has to be a low science fiction game because they wouldn’t possibly compete with their own genre is a logical fallacy and proven wrong by Blizzard’s own history.

All we know for sure is that we know almost nothing about Titan. They’ve done such a great job of hiding information about it, that throwing darts at a plot board would be as useful as the speculation done here.

@Rink — Some of us, nonetheless, actually enjoy speculating. Nothing is contingent on what we say, so there’s nothing wrong with only using the modicum of clues available to us.

At one point you wrote, “is a logical fallacy and proven wrong by Blizzard’s own history”. Could you please elaborate on logic and historic evidence to which you refer?

I still stand by what I’ve written so far. Titan will be along the same vein as “Snow Crash” and “Blade Runner”. Anything deviating from that genre will be provided by either a “Shadow Run” or “Rifts” type plot device.

Speculating is good, but I do kind of see something strange in their current 3 monoliths, wow diablo and sc. WoW is all very physical in a sense. Diablo, while fantasy like wow, deals more with ethereal things like heaven and hell (albeit there are ghosts and other realms in wow, but that doesnt really hold the same connotation as say, killing the devil). Then we got starcraft, which takes us inter outer space. So really theres the three mediums they have been using, right? There’s a physical theme, an ethereal theme, and a space theme. I hope they just give us something brand new, because originality is always appreciated no matter how small the fan base. I want to see something new, in someplace that is new in a way that is new. Ive played wow for 5 years, so ive given blizzard (15 x 12 x 5) dollars. Now give me something new please.

Mainly my goal for my post, i missed, was saying that their 3 current big hitters don’t really overlap in prose or mechanics or theme. I feel like they arent going to give us something weve seen before.

So you gave Blizzard $900 over 5 years. Aside from the fact that that didn’t cover one person’s salary for a fortnight, you’ve already received your goods for payment. That 5 years is in the past, done, dusted, paid and received. Blizzard doesn’t ‘owe’ you anything past the end of your current subscription month.

If you want to really have an argument, you need to be able to say “If you don’t give me something new, I’ll *stop* paying my $15 a month.” That’s a much harder thing for most players of WoW to say, given how addictive it is. That’s why there’s still a 10 million subscriber fanbase, even though they’ve not really given us anything revolutionary in the last 7 years.

Additionally, the point about you only giving Blizzard $900 (plus box costs) over the last 5 years highlights their financial basis. They won’t develop to what a player wants, because that player’s total payment is minuscule. They *have* to develop to what the majority of players want. Excluding Apple and the fanboi effect, that means that you have to either have an existing known franchise (that’s given as a “no”) or you have to not step so far from the norm that people aren’t willing to invest their time in the new startup. Blizzard will get a base player value simply because of the previous franchises, but they won’t be able to go so far from the standard that *they established*, because people won’t invest the time to change.

High fantasy is fantasy that takes place in a secondary, made up world ( it can be a completely separate universe or a ‘world’ within the real, primary world, like the Harry Potter series) where magic is common and normal. Low fantasy is fantasy that takes place in the real world we live in.

We can all hope and wish for something Different , I love starwars but SWTOR got slow and boring quick and just reminded me why i wanted to get away from wow in the first place … both good MMOs but they have the same feel and grind and level up woes .. grind .. Playing a game any form of game should be enjoyable , fun but so often ever since MMOs where created it has been the same mechanics glossed over with disguises .
wow – broke the mold somewhat it was tongue in cheek , more about fun and laughs than about serious raiding but the higher the level you got then raiding became end game , two diff feels .. wow is now all about end game … leveling and enjoying the vast environment for most of the 10 mill subscribers is NON Existent … they could delete everything but Stormwind and Ogrammar and believe me most players would never know lol ….

I think Blizzard recognize that people like building there own individual spaces … facebook , minecraft ( i think its crap but hey its lego creation and thats the best toy on the planet because its about imagination ) …. Why do we play MMOs – answer to create an avatar as individual from others than we are to other people … and would we like to create the world that its immersed into as well .

A possible play on what Blizzard have said … Titan … it will be all of the above ….

From basic structure of a game I think they will let players build there own worlds with there own rules — Titans ( as they have used this title in the context of Creators ) Dont ask me how im not blizzard .

The game will have a beginning or level up so to speak but the end content will be player creation based , infinitive imaginations on how to create something . ( all of the above , historic , scifi , fantasy etc ) ..

Im just thinking outside the box but with existing ideals , facebook / myspace type of social statements and comunication that have a framework which you build on and make it yours and its individual created by you the player .

I bet though knowing the two sides of blizzard its all hype and it will be world of starcraft !! lol It definitely wont be an FPSMMO … who knows i just hope its different than all the rest of whats on offer atm .

Could it possibly take place on another planet that the Titans created in the warcraft universe? It would have a completely different storyline that doesnt interact with azeroth at all but it would have similar features because it still takes place in the same universe… it would open it up to a few new classes that are only available on said planet and new races.. we would have the basics of a new game but still have the frame of Warcraft that we all have come to know and love. It would be like refreshing WoW but with a new lore.

Will be military style, but not first person. Create factions/alliances, play with friends, upgrades, special items, the whole nine yards. Build townships with homes for your characters and storage for items. Eventual alliances will have network of townships and even countries, constantly fighting for territory, defending same.

I really hope for a human development game, example every server is an age. We have cave people, first agricultural people, greeks, romans, dark age, vikings, medieval time, renessance, exploring new worlds, mperialism, industrialism, and so on. Its a never ending game :p

Blizzard do not invent new things. They also like simple ideas. If they try to do anything more they will fail. Also don’t think they will do any complex game as they love to balance their games and all complex games are difficult or near impossible to balance.

The one thing I expect is that their will put chat or maybe even video chat and facebook kind of features.
In terms of genre they can go anyway but it’s gonna be as simple as WoW + more social features.

Yes because ‘unrivalled success’ is defined as copying what everyone else is doing and not inventing new things. Totally why they failed at everything they tried to do more than just a simple single player RTS in 1994. Seriously, that statement adds nothing to the discussion.

Blizzard knows they need to encourage all the people who wouldn’t normally play MMO’s or even online games, so yeah, the social aspect will be there, but even they’ve said that.

Diablo 3 was not a success. People didn’t quite enjoy it as Diablo 2. Basically they somehow failed even if they still earned a lot. Not many people will be playing diablo for years to come. Great innovative ideas are extremely rare. No matter how well they polish their games inventing new one which will revolutionize the MMO will be a tricky one. I’m sure they will do some great polished game but I won’t believe that it will be as good as WoW was when it started and it probably will last only a couple of years with good number of subscriptions. But hey, maybe I’m mistaken and they will actually invent something new this time but I see millions of fans speculating about Titan and they don’t know what revolutionary could possibly be. Do you have any idea of how to make MMO revolutionary? Probably not nor millions of others. I don’t expect that few Blizzard employees have. The one revolution brought recently to MMO is Dust514 + EVE Online coupled together. I don’t think there are many more coming.

But I hope I’m not right, believe me. I want some game which is as addictive as WoW which will last me for 10 years at least as Diablo 3 failed big time for me and I wasn’t even one of these fans which complained about it before it come out.

By your own description, works of Tolkien would be classified as “low fantasy”. You have read his work, haven’t you? You would know then that down to earth and keeping it simple and historical was his style.
That being said, WoW is basically in it’s own category of “Over-the-top fantasy” if you ask me.
You wouldn’t see someone in Lord of the Rings that’s running around with two 2-hander weapons over their head riding on a dragon with glowing armor. The magic in Tolkien’s work is very subtle and in WoW it’s used and abused by everyone.

You forget though that Tolkien has Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Dragons. WoW may be more over the top, but Tolkien is still high fantasy. Low fantasy would be the Conan the Barbarian series, or Greek/Roman Mythology, where everyone is human and the magic is even more subtle than LOTR.

I read these, and most of these opinions seem like stated wild fantasies… like, if the poster dreams big enough, Blizz will do it. Blizz is not infallible, and being the “best” equipped studio on the planet doesn’t just mean you magically have technology and creative content that has never been used before. Step back from that ridiculous computer you custom made with your leet nerd skills, and look at the average Joe’s. Yeah, that same average Joe that doesn’t *gaf* about Star Trek, Star Wars, Battleship, etc etc etc… you’re telling me Blizz is going to dump some crazy budget into some gnarly game the 1%ers can run which completely alienates Joe Blow because of it’s scope of gameplay? Keep dreaming. I don’t know a single basement-nerd irl that plays wow. Every friend I have that plays WoW is either a husband/father with a great job, or a touring musician (not in an I-got-picked-on-in-highschool-metal-band, either).

Whatever they release, it’s going to be aimed at the majority, not the minority. It won’t be some uber-leet sauce game that only a handful of people can run on decent settings, and it won’t be so focused on old school table top RPG elements (impossibly deep stories) that it alienate casual gamers.

As far as MY dream would go… with all of this possible Blizz /flex people keep mentioning… would be Blizz doing a genre (well!!!!) that no one has fucked with. Post apocalyptic/zombie.

Rob is right. All the people that made warcraft1/2, Diablo1 and starcraft 1 is gone, these games were innovative. What remains of the company is pretty much only the name Blizzard and they have not invented anything.
P.S Chris Metzen only drew artwork back in the days.

Please for the love of god. don’t copy wow. I can tell you there is a massive base of players out there that are dying for the complexity of star war galaxies. the customization of housing, items, free fly space combat, guild mail, guild halls , in game voice. give us swg back with a new face shhhhhh!! we wont tell. It will be are secret

If you want an example, tell me the maximum subscriber numbers that SWG got at any point in its life. Theme-park MMO’s will always trump Sandbox, because after you cater for the small percentage of “I’m dedicated” players, the vast majority of “I have a few hours to kill each week” players will look at the game and go “There’s no content. I’m going to go play something else.”

I don’t necessarily agree that Theme-park is a ‘better’ or ‘more interesting’ game, but you’ll never convince a business on the scale of Blizzard to go sandbox, without something… more.

there is theme park burn out. give us a sandbox and let us be creative. or therepopulation.com will beat you as they have the right idea going on. what big companies want is a return on there investment and what better then a game that can hold 7 years plus subscriptions at 14.99 with many having 8 accounts. and swg would have had bigger numbers if it didn’t try to compete with wow and do the nge updates that ruined the game.
there is a huge calling for a new big time sandbox style and who better to give it then the innovative team at blizzard all the most ground breaking things in gaming history came from blizzard. If theme park is so successful why is swtor taking a massive dive. no end game nothing but boredom and plague of cheaters.
I have 4 lvl 50 char there and I just stopped playing. my guild is dying. In swg we were 500 strong now just a shadow of are selves. No in game voice, No guild halls, crafting is a joke, fly by wire space lame, pve and pvp to separated no reason to pvp if you pve and vise verse. two gear sets that don’t work in pvp or pve depending the type you have. I don’t want the game to dictate my pace and i don’t want the game all about me i want to be part of it not all of it .

I Really hope this is a sandbox-style MMO. Of all the MMO’s I’ve played (a lot), WoW was my 2nd favorite, only to Pre-CU SWG. WoW when I played it (up to the lich king) was the most well made game out there, nearly flawless. However it’s still second to me next to Pre-CU SWG because, SWG allowed you complete freedom. All the expansions could never amount to the social experience in playing that MMO.

From a lush economy completely Player-controlled, vendors included, to hunting groups, and Huge raid parties for dungeon/loot and PvP, no matter how badly SWG lacked in game content & bugginess, it still never got old (until SOE ruined it, of course), because the potential Player-based content was virtually endless, and the social interaction has still never been matched. I have not played EVE however, I’ve never really been a fan of space games. But that’s my hope anyway, a Sandbox MMO.

I really like how the author of this subject specified “high fantasy, low fantasy, high scifi, hard scifi”, etc. and I also believe if theres any company that can do an MMO right, its blizzard. Tons of content, leans into the learning curve instead of hitting you with a brick wall.

I think it’s going to be a game very similar to star ocean. Where you travel to different planets in different states of technology and you gather skills from each area. Swordsmanship from a classic era planet or marksmanship with a gun in a modern era planet, or mecha in a techno era planet. Sandbox mmo travel to wherever you like kinda like mass effect. Learn various skills, fight baddies, get interesting artifacts and gear.
Maybe even push a crafting system like star ocean like when you find certain things on planets you can combine them back at your ship and make new weapons/armor/items. Have a crew npcs/ and or friends. Would be amazing. Maybe even throw in some Neocron stuff (cyber punk), like implants and such.

I Agree very much with what the post said!…. I do not think that the game will be cross planetary, its never very good… because you then only have cirtain areas to go on the planet, but your thinking…. where is the rest of this dang planet? Why cant i go there? so that is why blizzard will stick to one world… and then exspantions will create cross planet travel, adding new lands and bosses exc.
This will be a great game because… lets face it, blizzard makes sick games… and this will be no different! cannot wait!

Whatever it is It will be terrible, Blizzard stopped caring about WoW as a game after TBC and removed quality and inserted quantity into the way they made the MMO – Why? Money of course. Actiblizzard loves money. What makes you think that Titan will be any different than the baby’s first MMO that WoW has become?

What usually make some games great and unique are small brilliant easy to implement ideas and not huge amount of caring and thinking (this just make them more polish/bug free). If somebody there found some new brilliant receipt for next MMO then it will sell and will kill WoW. If they didn’t no amount of polishing will make ppl stay with it as long as they do with WoW. And Blizzard says that they expect people will play both Titan and WoW which just makes me think that they didn’t invented anything new which would make Titan so great, as otherwise most people would switch to it and would not play WoW anymore. Popularity of a game is the biggest reason people switch to it and not its gender (RPG vs SciFi, who cares when all my friends play XXX ).

I think we will see a great game but we may not stick to it for as long as WoW.
I pray I’m wrong!

Personally I would love to explore a different setting for once. I play The Secret World at the moment and although it isn’t great it still feels like a breath of fresh air being away from a typical fantasy setting or sci-fi setting. TESO looks great but I just can’t get excited about this kind of environment anymore. It just is boring.

I would really love it if Titan is revealed as a Steampunk MMO, similar in setting to Arcanum. They can have science-fiction and fantasy elements with a post-apokalytpic flair.

I’ve only read about half of all the comments, so I don’t know if something like this has already been suggested. I’m watching the ‘Stargate SG 1′ tv series where they use a stargate to travel to distant worlds and try to overcome new challenges , and I’m thinking, ‘This would be an awesome model for a MMORPG’. It would also be easy to add new content since it won’t be in conflict with a specific storyline, since the game would ‘just’ be about exploring. What do you think of this idea?

Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your post seem to be running off the
screen in Safari. I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I figured I’d
post to let you know. The layout look great though!
Hope you get the problem resolved soon. Kudos

As much as a starcraft MMO would be awesome, Blizz has stated that itas supposed to be something new and unique. Personally “sci-fi, steampunk, and apocalyptic, all sound like a steampunk like game. Then again that might just be me.

You were right. Titan was cancelled and they salvaged what they could to create Overwatch, which is “Low Science Fiction”. Based 60 some-odd-years in the future according to Chris Metzen at BlizzCon 2014, it perfectly fits your description and prediction of a Low Science Fiction intellectual property from Blizzard. I read this post long before Titan was cancelled and sought it out just to make this comment. Good job on your insight, it was spot on.

Given that as of the 10 year anniversary (yes I know we’re necro-ing a 3 year old post), Blizzard has said that WoW has no fixed endpoint, I’d say their plans have changed to “Lets keep incrementally improving WoW until numbers dip too far.” They got down to 5.5 mil in SoO and jumped back up to 9 (I think) with the WoD release. How many stay is uncertain, but WoD definitely was a shot in the arm.

Until WoW really starts financially flagging, they’re not going to release anything new in the genre, which is shown by Overwatch being an FPS.